


The Grass is Greener (On the Other Side)

by idonthaveawittyusername



Series: Colours Corrected [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Candybloods replace Fuchsia as rulers of the Alternian Empire, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, And by that I mean Helmsman things, Body Horror, Consensual Sex, Did I fucking mention BODY HORROR for helm-related stuff gone wrong and for Signless' experiences, Expect things like ports/scars etc, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Medical Procedures, Medical Torture, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Sexual Slavery, People Murder Each Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psii tries to understand Alternian politics and fails, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-04 09:12:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5328665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idonthaveawittyusername/pseuds/idonthaveawittyusername
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the way the Empire works (the way it always has) isn't good enough, someone has to step up to the platform and fix it; but fixing this would be much more difficult than Signless had ever anticipated. What his ancestor had done, he felt he had to reverse. That was his purpose.<br/>But change is always slow, and may of the people that need it never feel it. Trolls who weren't really trolls, like #28374991, knew this very well. Life is terrible, painful and short, and it is simply best to accept it and move along. Some trolls are people, and some trolls are property, and he was of the latter kind-- bound to serve the aristocracy of the Empire for the little time he had.</p><p>But how can anyone fix an Empire filled with powerful people opposed to change and under-privileged people who had no say for the changes they wanted?<br/>Not without copious amounts of distress, death, betrayal and (because what sort of work would this be without it) romance, of course. </p><p>Follow Signless and Psiioniic as they waft their way through political bullshit to find a happy, healthy and loving matespritship.<br/>(And watch out for the eventual sequel, where Sollux and Karkat show up, and even more drama unfolds)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DanaIfYouPlease](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanaIfYouPlease/gifts).



> A plot based heavily on one of my favourite RPs, so to that lovely person who's ruined me enough to write all those tags, here you go. To my other friends, I'm terribly (not) sorry for the angst storm coming.  
> But don't worry, we have fluff to balance it out.  
> (No sex just yet; I'll put an individual warning when it comes up in later chapters)

**♋️**

**Enough was enough.**

His cowardice, his refusal to take action; he was so very sick of waiting for things to change on their own. He could lie low no longer, encouraged by those who so desperately needed him-- the psionics, the slaves, the gentle jades protecting the mother grub from all this carnage. Kannus would live forever, unless he put a stop to it.  
Put a stop to his own genetic donor, whom he had watched descend so far into madness with his power. It was almost tragic, but for how lucid and cruel he was. But then, what ruler had not been so, in their own time?

 

He attacked in the daylight, when Kannus would not be surrounded by his war machines or his followers; the troll sleeping disgustingly peacefully. He had to scale the walls of his own home in the light of the day, avoiding the many 'living' corpses roaming the grounds-- Kannus' fallen victims-- to be able to reach him without attracting attention. The sun was hot on his back, and the stakes high, but he couldn't afford to fall from such a height and to such a fate. No doubt doing so would mean his end. If the fall itself wouldn't seal his fate, the revenants would feast from him until he was done for. But he had a task too important to allow this to happen, so he braved the risk to obtain the upper hand from his donor. He would need it.

 

The fight itself was difficult and long, truly louder than it needed to be with the thuds of connecting hits and rage-fuelled snarls, but Kannus was a cocky man and had no guard stationed close to his door that could help him tip the scales in his favour. They were at the ends of the halls and loosely patrolling, much to his opponent's advantage, or perhaps luck. Kankri tore at him in his rage, eyes and hands and clothes bright red.  
Though, that wasn't to say Kannus did not fight back. The troll was was small, much smaller than his offspring, but he was old and powerful and would not give in unless he had no choice. He was fighting for his power and for his life, after all, and the gall of his own flesh and blood to dare try and end him, replace him, was infuriating. How dare he? How dare he do this? Kannus attempted to control his mind, to throw him around-- to kill him in return for Kankri attacking him. It was long decided that in this situation, only one troll would leave the room. The other would stay to bleed out onto the marble tiles, to stain them a bright red was the other stalked out with victory and exhaustion. No doubt each troll was determined to be the latter option.

In the end, it was Kannus who left that room first, sure he had won his crown and his life yet again. Many offspring had come before this one, after all. Kannus was an old, old troll, and this was not the first time he had been challenged, even underhanded like this. Assassinations and murder attempts had slowed down when the Empire began to fear him and the highbloods began gaining benefits from his rule, but he had never been safe-- even from his own kin.  
But in his confidence, he had turned his back on his offspring, sure he had won already. This mistake would cost him his life, it seemed, and his throat was slit without delay. Blood splattered the floor and spread through the Emperor's clothing as it gushed from the wound, but he was not dead yet. Even when Kankri had slit his throat, he was not done fighting yet. He came for the younger royal, small and vicious and dangerous as ever. Kankri fought him away, pushed at him in defence. Clearly, he couldn't wait for the troll to simply bleed out. He was terrified, but he wanted Kannus' death, and his fearful respect. The Emperor had been so mightily above all, even his own offspring, and treated trolls as expendable objects to be tortured and used for his will-- they were nothing to him, but what made him so much better?  
Adrenaline-filled and furious, Kankri tore his chest open as he changed to the offensive side, forcing his genetic donor back as the monster bubbled blood from his mutilated throat and chest, his screams of pain and anger and betrayal muffled in a fountain of thick scarlet.

Kankri wrapped his hands around Kannus' throat, and with a rush of power, he finally saw that fear he wanted in his elder's eyes.  
He pushed his donor out of the window and into the sunlight, pulling his bloody hood up as he watched him hit the ground with a sick thud. These quarters were high off the ground, though the crunch of bones breaking on impact were able to be clearly heard. Then, he watched the revenants fall upon him. If Kankri had not killed him, those awful creatures would.

 

Kankri seized power of his Empire immediately, but quietly. So quietly, that for a very long time, no one outside of those who worked in the palace knew Kannus was dead. Wading through the dead troll's mad genius took time, and Kankri had to come to acknowledge in that time that he was not half the troll that his donor had been, when considering his intelligence. It embittered him deeply, and the full extent of how long this change would take became clear, but he persevered.  
His Empire could not be left in these shambles. Enough was enough.

He worked, single-mindedly, for sweeps upon sweeps to try and reverse the damage that had been done by the previous ruler. Civil war was abundant across his planet, and psion-driven war machines were often found destroying towns under the orders of highbloods wanting more power, more land, or simply for the sake of the bloodshed. If one were to discount the horrific genius that it took to invent such machines, medical and scientific marvels as they were, this would be Kannus' legacy. Alternia in shambles for all but the richest of the rich.  
Trolls were made, hatched, and lost in the time before his public realized that Kannus had been awfully quiet lately. One of those not lost was a beautiful female, an oliveblood of unparalleled love and incredible strength. She captured Kankri's heart, and everything beyond that, to the point that she became his world to the exclusion of everything else except for, well, Alternia. When he was not slogging through the nonsense that Kannus had put in place, the horrific nonsense, he was with her. They blurred the clear boundaries of the quadrants together, and with her, he was happy. They had eleven long sweeps together in that palace, more happy than Kankri could ever have imagined being.

Things began to change, and for the better this time. Laws were moving forward, and Kankri became a public figure. He personally freed hordes of slaves and thousands of psionics from the binds of their masters, and became highly favoured by those disadvantaged by the system Kannus had created. The psions, however did not ordinarily survive long, from what Kankri was informed. They were being killed even after escape from slavery-- murdered for the gall of being free slaves, or died from the aftermath of their abuse, from malnourishment; he could not know by what else. Maybe it was simply the weight of their own trauma weighing them down. After all, being raised to be a death machine must have some emotional and mental toll.

In doing these things, he came under the realization that nobility was not fond of his decisions, to say the least. In particular, an ancient Makara, a Grand Highblood with offspring about Kankri's age, was very vocal about his hatred of the Emperor and the changes he was making to the Empire. By lifting some of those at the bottom of society from absolute poverty (the ones he could, as it was still such a work in progress), it seemed to threaten those near the very top. It was Kankri's mistake not to think anything of it, in the end. His thoughts were rather on the positive side, that things were continuing to progress! No one could stop him, he thought, the Empire was becoming a better place under his rule.

He didn't even notice when he had become too cocky, too public-- flown too close to the moons, and his wings came apart in flames as he fell to the surface.  
And the riots began against him.

 

 

** ♊ **

There wasn't much to say about psions on Alternia, for they were all the same.

All were hatched from the caverns and processed, identities given to them and then taken down for later in life when they'd be rounded up to serve the Empire.  
All were settled with a lusus and had access to somewhere to live, the opportunity there to schoolfeed themselves until they were inevitably taken away in the dead of day to fulfil their duties.  
All cried when their lusii were slaughtered, but tears would not save them-- tears would do nothing good for them ever again, and it was good to learn this quickly.  
Then, they were given a number, and that would replace their name. From then on, they were no longer trolls. They were property, weaponry, and a symbol of good wealth for those lucky enough to have the key to the creature's power-suppressing collar. The creatures themselves were most certainly not of good wealth, but why should they be? They were nothing but tools for the Empire to use.

 

Mituna Captor wasn't much different from the others, despite having been much younger when he had been taken away.  
Most would reach their sixth or seventh wriggling day before their lives were abruptly ripped from them, but this psion had been looking to his fourth. Not he, nor his lusus had been prepared for such an event so soon-- not even old enough to be schoolfed beyond basic speaking skills. Imperatives such as counting and general knowledge of the world around him were still out of his young grasp, when they came for him. But it was simple; his test scores as a grub had sealed his fate early on, when he'd only just wriggled from the cavern trials, and the trade had been so deprived of something so young and powerful. He was to be expensive.

He had been branded a number (one he couldn't read himself, though he tried when it was late morning and he squinted as hard as he could at his inner arm; trying to remember the squiggles of the numbers that made up his identification and match them with what people called him), "#28374991", and was sold near immediately to a rich seadweller in want of a new, powerful psionic source for the ship she was having commissioned.  
His mistress was impatient and not in the least sympathetic to the wriggler's plights; so, despite his age, he learned quickly that angering her led to harsh punishment. Usually, she found amusement in tiny chain rings that pinched and tore at the flesh when they were rolled on and off of the fingers, leaving the digits bloody and swollen and his eyes puffy from tears, but a bloody lashing was a close second in her favour. He tended to prefer the latter, if only because he had a tendency to fiddle with his fingers when he was anxious and couldn't do as such until his fingers were healed from punishment-- not fidgeting only seemed to make him more upset, which irritated his mistress and led to more punishment. A cycle, clearly, that never came about when something as simple as a lashing was chosen for him. Pain was easy to ignore, compared to anxiety.

Despite it, he had displayed a loud mouth and a distinct lack of 'pan-to-mouth filter, and didn't seem to learn when to shut up. At least, not until a good sweep or so later, when his real purpose there became clear to him.

 

At five sweeps old, number 28374991 was brought by his mistress to a midblood's hive. He'd thought nothing of it, as was expected of him. Slaves didn't think, they only obeyed, and he was a good slave. There, he stood still as the two adults discussed what was to be done, the stranger prodding at his back and neck occasionally while explaining something beyond his comprehension. Then, they agreed on a payment.

It was only when he was guided to a table only a little bigger than his own body and strapped down that his mistress informed him of his new duties. She cooed with a false tone of care and a real twinge of pride (though, that was in herself rather than him) that he was going to be a helmsman for her, the most powerful one on record. She gave him new instructions for his new tasks, and though they mostly came across as 'I will not tolerate screaming' and similar remarks, he did his best to remember them. He was going to be a good ship, if only to avoid being punished.

Though, there was only so much a wriggler could do to avoid screaming, in his situation. Without any numbing agents, the psion could feel the slices of the scalpel and the midblood peeling back the skin along his spine, something felt like it was burning as it was inserted into him, and he could have sworn it _moved_ but how could he tell? There was the sting of cold metal against his nerves and what little muscle he had-- but that was all he could really gather until he slipped out of consciousness.

When he woke, he was disoriented; still strapped to the table as the two adult talked to each other over what he could assume was either a glass of wine or tea (he could hear the clinking, but his psionics weren't responding to him, he couldn't make those pulses to see with, but why?). His throat burned from screaming, the sound all but gone from him, and his back stung like it was still wretched open and exposed. If he'd had anything in his stomach, he would have likely thrown up from the pain, but the midblood ignored his pained and terrified whine, setting down their drink to continue the job.

 

Agonising surgery after agonising surgery later, he'd been found that he'd fitted with ports specially made for the small ship his mistress had purchased. Her plan for the future was to commission a warship, a battle-cruiser, but this smaller model was important in ensuring the little psion was strong enough for such a task; or so she had told him. After the crying and fear was passed and the slave was plugged in for his first go at flight, his tendency to speak or think out of line seemed to disappear completely. He was a good ship; though a detachable model, if only for convenience when he had other jobs to do as well as pilot when his mistress (or her new partner, another seadweller only known to the psion as 'master') wanted to travel, for which he was glad. The more time he spent plugged in, the more he missed simple things like scratching an itch and stretching one's limbs. But he was to be grateful for what he had, that he was alive when so many others were dead.

 

 

The worst experience, he had to note, was likely after he had been plugged into his helm. Of course, he was fully capable of stepping out of it again, but he wouldn't until given the order to do so-- so until that happened, he was very much stuck. Stuck without the use of his arms to scratch as his skin started to harden up and crack open, or to even place over the areas that started burning as the chunks peeled back to reveal muscle and a thin clear layer protecting him from the bacteria around him. As the hardening became worse, he had gathered the bravery to ask his mistress to be taken down for rest-- his body exceptionally tired from trying to moult him into his adult's body at the same time as having all its energy taken forcefully as the ship's power. But as he had expected, it only earned him a slap and an indignant response, and he was left to rot at his post.

And rot those chunks did, both before and after they peeled from his body; leaving bloody patches where the clear layer of skin left was ripped away as well, leaving his muscle exposed to the cold and dirt around him. None of it stopped the biocables wrapped around his arms and legs from occasionally stabbing into him and taking (sometimes giving) nutrients to live. The place smelt like rotting flesh and thick blood, and whether the slave had been lucky to survive was a debatable topic. On one hand, the pain alone could have killed him (as it did many others with better care than he) had half of his thinkpan not been immersed within the ship's system and away from his physical suffering, discounting the incredible presence of bacteria and harmful substances touching him while he'd been so vulnerable; on the other hand, the adult moult was supposed to make a troll much stronger. It should have been able to make it harder for him to hurt.  
But, as fate (and simple biology) would have it, this would not be the case for this slave.  
His chitin grew in evenly, at the very least, but compared to what it should have been, it was terribly easy to break through-- like paper. The grown spurt that should have given him a good two or more feet had never come, leaving him the same size he'd been as a wrigger; and though his lisp was gone, he found no other positive changes in his body afterwards. His metabolism should have slowed, at the very least, but he had lost his vision from a lack of moisture to protect them while he moulted, so his eyes were taken from him. While he was on the helm and his psionics were kept away from his control in order to power the ship, his body was blind.

What was left on the helm was a weak and starved helmsman, cull-bait anywhere but in servitude. In the moments he could think for himself, he found his emotions to be bitter, but that soon washed away to apathy once again. Life would go on as it always did.

 

Sweeps later, the psion's miraculous survival of his adult moult (the elder slaves that worked for his owners told him it was a miracle, that it meant he was strong) had earned his mistress' praise, and soon her trust through his unquestioning loyalty. He wasn't a bad ship, he was a good one. A very good ship, who did exactly what was wanted of him, when it was wanted of him. Good ship. Good helmsman. It had his sallow features glow with an exhausted pride when he was given the praise.  
And such good slaves deserved occasional rewards, she had said to him with a quick, condescending pat on the head, having another of his quiet brethren pull the wires from his body-- fangs sinking into his own lower lip so he couldn't cry out from the sensation of being taken out again, like barbs of acid dragging through his flesh.

So, given the opportunity to explore the town, he excitedly took it.  
He had honestly thought he'd enjoy the chance to see the world outside his ship, but in reality, being outside without his mistress or master barking orders at him was distressing-- especially when he came across smoke and the sound of yelling and screaming. What was he to do without them? What was he to do at all, confronted with a riot like this?

All he could really do was let his bare feet take him to the source of the chaos, as curious as he was conflicted.  
What was going on here?


	2. Escaping the Ruins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll likely notice a lot of confusing talk about Psiioniic's eyesight starting in this chapter; but don't worry! Try to pick up on what's being hinted at, and the full explanation will be given in a later chapter.   
> I'll also probably end up linking a no-bullshit explanation on my tumblr for reference on a lot of these headcanons, so feel free to leave a comment about anything that needs an out-of-fic explanation.

**♋️**

Fire.

Smoke.

Ashes.

 

A hundred trolls laid dead in the shambles of what had one been a beautiful building-- a palace turned into a crater, blackened and ruined in a brutal attack against Alternia's Emperor.  
The Emperor himself wasn't present in the rubble of his home; dragged outside by turncoats and conspirators to pay for his efforts in ruling their Empire. In making Alternia better for those at the bottom, the trolls with higher status were furious as countless slaves were freed from their binds and wealth began to be distributed more evenly than before; and now, sweeps of planning had come to fruition as the group of highblooded trolls laid siege to what should have been the safest place on the planet.

It was with painfully cracked and broken chitin that the enraged Emperor resisted their hands and their weapons, fat globs of wet scarlet pouring from the wounds they'd caused on him. A gargantuan indigo troll stood over him, taking no heed of the shrieking and snapping of the captive.

"Gabrel, sir! The shackles?" Said an average-sized blueblood, looking for orders from the indigo. He looked so incredibly small next to the enormous beast of a troll that seemed to be leading the offensive attack, though he was close to Kankri's height despite it, and Kankri was no small troll.

"Get his hands-" Barked Gabrel, the elder of the Makara line and the subjuggulator cult's Grand Highblood. "And don't let that fuck touch you."

Kankri struggled, even under the weight of the five closest trolls holding his arms and body tightly. Though in the end, one troll can only do so much when so heavily outnumbered.  
The shackles they put on him were a burning red, as bright as his blood, and his chitin smoked and cooked the second they clasped around his wrists.

They strung him up from a once-grand pillar, screaming in a way so pained it was animalistic, as the agony of his flesh being burned away destroyed what self control he had in him, his attackers laughing and stabbing at him as they watched him suffer.

 

** ♊ **

Though he had been anticipating trouble when he heard screaming, 28374991 had never been expecting the scene that came before him when he found the source of the disturbance.

He had no idea what the building in front of him used to be, burned to the ground and now nothing more than rubble. From its size, he could tell it must have been grand-- an entertainment ring, perhaps? He looked on at the destruction, passive of its violent destruction. After all, he was trained to use his control over his ship to destroy, and on a much larger scale than a simple building, no matter its purpose or social significance. So, this was nothing interesting to him. What he was curious about was the yelling and screaming he could still hear, louder now that he was closer to the source.  
Tilting his head in the direction he was sure the sounds were coming from, the small psion stilled in his leisurely walk as he detected what he'd been looking for. A group of trolls gathered around what he could only assume was a pillar, one of them larger than anyone he'd ever seen before.

As he walked around, a little closer, to investigate-- still passive, as this was none of a slave's business, after all-- he spotted another troll, seemingly strung up by the pillar. Ah, he was the source of the screaming. With a slightly impressed hum, he walked closer so he could get a better reading on the scene in front of him. It was hard to scan his surroundings when he was too far from it, after all; it would just take more psionic energy than he'd put aside for his sight, and he couldn't go over his quota. There was a metal collar cinched tight around his throat, inch-sized hollow spikes dug into the vulnerable flesh and administering a suppressant for his powers (like for any other enslaved psion), only leaving him enough power to see in a close vicinity. Luckily for him, the gang of trolls took no notice of the tiny adult yellowblood so close to them. He would be no threat to them, after all.

Curious as to why this troll in particular was being tortured in such a way (though he platonically pitied his position, the psion did nothing), he paid more attention to the blood colours of the trolls in front of him. Of course, he couldn't actually  _see_ colours, but his psionics could pick up temperatures-- he could give a rough guess as to where each of the trolls sat on the spectrum according to that. Perhaps the tortured soul up there was a slave, like him.  
No, he couldn't be, he was too well-fed to be a slave. So who was he?  
Brows drawing together as he concentrated on it, he was able to place the gang of trolls from cerulean up to indigo-- something their sizes indicated quite well. With that mystery was solved, he turned his attentions to their victim, only to receive a reading that couldn't be right.

It couldn't be right, because it was much too warm to be even as low as a rustblood. The only caste that was left to be hotter than the bottom of the spectrum was the  _royal_ colour, and surely those highbloods weren't attacking their Emperor. Surely not; it wasn't the order of things. They should be kneeling low to the ground if the Emperor even looked in their direction, and this was out of the question. He was surely mistaken.  
But the longer he looked, the more and more certain he became that he wasn't mistaken. This had been a coup. He was standing there and watching a coup happen, the Emperor being tortured. Did that make him as bad as the traitors themselves? Would he be as bad as they if he were to walk away?

He would. This was _not_ the order of things. The Emperor was in charge for a reason, he was hatched for it; and all others were hatched to obey. That was the order of things. This unsettled him, enough to make him genuinely angry. How  _dare_ those highbloods, already so entitled at hatching, attack someone who was meant to lead them all? How  _dare_ they betray their station when they had no hardship to so much as complain or be unhappy about?  
How fucking  _dare_ they?

Hands shaking with both rage and fear, the slave lifted his right hand and rested the pads of two skeletal fingers onto his collar; temples pounding and eyesockets aching as he tried to push passed the chemical in his bloodstream-- lifting the other hand with a matching two crooked fingers to touch the other side of the collar, a flash of dizziness erupting in his thinkpan as the collar came apart and fell to the ground in pieces. Skinny chest heaving for a few breaths to catch up and calm his bloodpusher, he pulled the spikes from his neck and flicked them away too. The effect was almost an immediate one, his bloodstream working to fight off the chemical suppressant, and as soon as he felt stable on his feet again, he gathered himself, and the head of the blueblood closest to the Emperor was crushed to nothing with a flick of his fingers, the traitor's corpse falling to the ground.  
That was a test run. He could slaughter them all at once, if he wanted, but he needed to conserve his energy. After all, the Emperor wouldn't quite be in the clear once the others were dead. They had to flee.

 

 In shock that their companion had simply imploded, the highbloods panicked-- perhaps only to the exception of the biggest one, who only gave a flinch at the change. Naturally, they turned to their captive, who had been the closest to the dead troll, but he could not have possibly caused the carnage, as 'occupied' as he was. A dozen or so of the onlooking traitors left to find the murderer, but all overlooked the tiny adult psion not too far from the group. After all, who would expect such a small, weak-looking creature?

After a moment of considering his own ability, the yellowblood's fingers twitched again, and more than half a dozen of the attacking highbloods' lives ended, much like the first one did. Once he could tell the remaining survivors were eyeing their dead brethren, their corpses' heads unrecognisable as trolls, a small flick of red broke the Emperor's shackles apart as blue lowered him gently to the ground. He would collect the troll when the rest of the traitors were dead.  
His nose crinkled a little as the royal vomited on the ground, whether from an injury or from the carnage he wasn't quite sure, attention turning away from the troll as he seemed to collapse-- simply assuming that he'd lost consciousness. Instead, he turned his attention back to the highbloods as he was noticed, one pointing to him and shouting before she too was ended quickly, her corpse falling to the ground with a sick thud. Too easy.

Gabrel's eyes fell on the little psion quickly after that, the small thing walking closer so he could see more clearly. The big troll would take the most energy to dispatch, so he couldn't afford to use much concentration on his sight. Closer now, he could see the Makara drawing his weapons, clubs as thick (if not thicker) than the slave's body, hefted with ease and a full intent to mash him to a smear across the dirt. Knowing he'd need no distractions for this troll, his fingers curled into a loose fist, and the rest of the highbloods were ripped apart. This time, their deaths were a warning not to challenge him, their organs spilling into puddles of blood and flesh around the indigo's feet.

"What are you doing?" He spoke up then, to the traitor left-- the giant-- as he walked closer. It was terrifying, but this wasn't the point where he could stop.

"Putting down a runt, then finishing up a traitor." Gabrel rumbled, his masses of hair raised and ears fanned out in a threat display directed at the small slave in front of him, only steps away. His mouth hung open, fangs glinting in the light that 28374991 could not see with his unique vision; grotesquely long tongue hanging partly out and swiping across his lips. It disgusted the psion as much as it had him fearful, but he was still furious, even as a massive club was raised with the full intention of culling him. Every instinct he had begged him to flee, to run back to his mistress and beg for her forgiveness.

"I can't let you have him." Was what he ended up saying, powers crackling around his eye-sockets as he hoisted himself to the same height as his opponent.

"And I can't let some uppity brat survive out of line." The Makara growled, arm swinging the lifted club directly at the tiny adult.

 

It was an incredibly fast fight.  
After a simple blink to prepare himself, an optic blast ripped from the psion's sockets and connected with the troll in front of him-- the club aimed at him flying just inches from the slave's head. It tore through thick chitin like melting butter, ripping Gabrel's flesh apart and cooking the edges of the chunks before they even hit the ground; flesh and bone slopping into a blood-wet, cooked heap. Even his grand horns weren't spared from the carnage.

Shutting his eyes as the gore splattered him, the yellowblood waited until all the chunks of flesh fell to the ground before he wiped indigo blood from his eyelids and face with a grimace. His bare feet then touched the ground gently, toes squelching unpleasantly in the blood puddle below him.  
Avoiding stepping on the chunks of flesh, he walked almost calmly (he believed in no value to a person's life, and had no remorse for what he'd done, but what had him uneasy was how many laws he'd just broken, how he could be executed so many times for what he'd just done, slaughtering _highbloods_ like this) through the puddles of dead trolls, leaving bloody footprints behind him as he approached the royal.  
He was so sure he would be ordered to death when this was all done if the Emperor lived through his torture, but the slave hadn't yet completed his duty.

 

**♋️**

Kankri's hands were frozen in place, fingers curled but trembling. The nerves and tendons of his wrists were too damaged to allow for any movement, and his pain too great to allow him the strength to sit up as he watched the final confrontation.  
But, he did look up at the psion that walked unhurriedly closer when the immediate danger was over, the inside of the troll's arm branded him as a number not easy to see from his angle, and so instead learned his sallow face. It was obvious that this one was captive; a slave. The scarring and bleeding holes wrapped around his throat made no secret of it.

Was the troll consumed by his power?

Would he kill Kankri next?

The stranger crouched down close to him, but didn't reach out nor attempt to slaughter him too. Instead, he seemed to look over the injured Emperor, and then spoke, his voice quiet and laced with what might have been concern.

"Do you know a place that's safe for you?"

 


	3. A Price (To Pay)

** ♊  **♋️** **

"I th-ought _home_... was safe." The injured troll whispered, eyes fluttering as he struggled to stay conscious. But after this attack, where could possibly be safe? The palace should have been the safest place on Alternia-- but this had shown that even there had not been as protected as the royal had thought. If anywhere was safe, it was nowhere nearby. This had at least taught him that.

"There has to be somewhere that can treat your injuries." 28374991 tried again, his eyes flicking around in an effort to scan their surroundings-- worried that the others would come back with long ranged weapons or  _something_ he couldn't fight. They weren't safe just yet. The Emperor needed to get to help soon, and he didn't know where he could take him. After all, this was his first time out of his mistress' sight since he'd been bought so many sweeps ago. "I need to get you out of the area. Can you tell me the direction of the nearest medical facility?

"S-south." The Emperor managed to croak. He was disoriented, and didn't know which direction south was in, but the place he was thinking of was away from the city and beyond the ruins of the palace. It was where his personal docterrorist lived, but what if he was on  _their_ side as well? Kankri didn't want to die.  
"Please... my matesprit." His eyes rolled toward the smoking ruins of his home. Maybe she had gotten out? He would give anything for that. "Beau-ti-ful. Long h-air. Ol-ive blood."

The slave nodded, ready to move when his train of thought was interrupted by the other troll speaking up again.  
"I'll come back, after you're safe." It was the best he could or would offer without being outright ordered to leave the royal behind in order to look for his matesprit. But even then, the psion knew that no one could survive in that rubble. Then, he stood up-- palms upward to the sky in time with the gentle red and blue cloud that lifted the other troll from the ground. It was more than obvious that the Emperor couldn't do it himself, so this would have to do. This was the first time that his non-sight dedicated psionics had been used in a non-destructive way. Interesting.

"Wh-who?" Kankri asked, eyes unfocussed as he looked weakly up at his saviour.

"What do you mean, who?" A little distracted as he ensured to himself that he could keep his psionic hold gentle. After a long moment, then another to figure out where south even was (a difficult feat when one couldn't see the moons to tell), they shot into the air and to the south-- high enough not to run into buildings, and just slow enough that with tremendous effort, he could sense the structures beneath them. It was hard to do that while also keeping them barricaded from the wind buffets, but he made do as well as he could. He was powerful, his master had said, he could do this.

"You. Who... _are_... you?" The feeling of being lifted up was strange, but the royal likely wouldn't remember the trip later on, and he could brush it off in the face of the pain he was in. Hopefully, he would have access to some sort of pain killers when they arrived to his docterrorist.

Searching for some place that seemed like it would hold medical staff, the psion barely paid attention to the question he'd been asked, though he had heard it. He didn't feel inclined to answer the Emperor, however the question could have been counted as a weak demand to know his identity. And like any other slave, he couldn't say no to a demand. He didn't speak until he'd picked the building that looked to be right, tilting his head to the other troll for confirmation before giving a slight shrug.  
"28374991." He supplied his number after a moment, figuring it was better than the 'nobody' he'd been so tempted to give. After all, what harm could it do?

"You... saved me. I'll find... you an-d re-ward you; later." Kankri promised; but he would never remember that number, and the yellowblood knew it. A psion that answered with his number would not give his name, and that was a long number. The chances of being found again were astronomical, even if he did remember it-- which the psion himself could only do since he heard it barked at him so often. Especially since he was due to be plugged into the warship soon, he wouldn't even be on planet. No, he wouldn't be found, and he was more than satisfied with the thought.

"I did my duty; I don't need a reward." The slave said simply, righting Kankri carefully and guiding him to the door to knock on it-- hearing the immediate stirring of someone inside. Good, he could be taken care of there.  
As soon as the psion righted him, the Emperor spoke again with a exhausted, pained sense of urgency. "Go, find her... please."

It was with a slight nod that the psion stepped back and found his bearings once again, darting off into the lightening sky (not that he knew it was getting closer to sun-up) to try and find the royal troll's matesprit. He doubted she would have survived, but it had technically been an order, and he was already much later than his curfew-- being even later would give him more lashings, but he had little choice by then. He'd search, then go home to his owners and hope they felt a little bit merciful.

 

** ♊  **

Touching down in the middle of the rubble that apparently used to be a grand palace, the slave began looking for any troll-like shape he could find. There were corpses littering the ruins, some buried while the others managed to make it out before being slaughtered, and he silently floated around in search for this fabled matesprit.

Eventually, he found long hair trapped beneath a pile of rubble-- lips pursing at the disgusting smell of burnt chitin and heat-damaged hair. This seemed to be the troll he was supposed to look for. She had the longest hair of the corpses he'd found, but he couldn't be sure, considering that he couldn't exactly tell if she was olive-blooded or not. But he took the chance in believing this was her, body still laying in the remains of what had surely once been a beautiful resting platform. By what the slave could tell, she must have been clubbed to death before the palace had fallen on her corpse. Was he supposed to bring her remains to the Emperor?  
He had simply been told to  _find_ her, but not to bring her back. And even if he had been told to do it, she likely would have fallen apart in transit. There was nothing he could do for either of them, the female or the Emperor.

With no matesprit to bring back to him, there was no point in going back. The Emperor was in good, trusted hands, he thought to himself; the only thing left to do would be to wash off the gore on his person and return home to his mistress. Surely, she would be livid at him for coming back without his collar and passed his curfew, but he had no choice.  
So, he took a quick trip to the nearest body of water he could find to wash the death from his person; then going back to his mistress to face the music and take his punishment. The only thing on his mind at that point was to not tell her exactly what he had done. She would cull him if she found out he had slaughtered highbloods, and he wasn't ready to die.

 

 

Like he had expected, his mistress had been rightfully furious.

28374991 had broken the expensive suppressant collar he'd had, broken her trust in him, and even his curfew; and beyond that, he refused to answer when she had demanded answers about what he had been doing, why he had come back wet and why he still smelled like sour and smoke.  
It had been the first time in a while he'd earned himself a beating, and while usually his master did it (mostly to impress his mistress, not that he knew this), she took it upon herself to teach him the lesson of a lifetime.

Back in ribbons around his ports and fingers newly crooked, the psion was tested one last time for his power levels. The results brought smug comments about him to other highbloods from his master, who had taken to titling him Psiioniic, after his 'gifts'. He had the highest power level in recorded history, for a slave at the very least; though that didn't stop him from being attached to the newly completed warship his mistress had gotten herself.  
This time he was attached, it was meant to be permanent.

Though he had been terrified of the pain he knew awaited him with the void of the inside of the ship, Psiioniic stepped willingly into his post, just like his owners had wanted him to.

Plugging into his new, huge ship was more agonising than in his old one. His ports plugging in cramped his body from his toes to his jaw, like acid eating away at his ports and burning at his already wounded skin, like it was tearing his insides apart. But, they were necessary to keep him alive-- to keep his organs functioning on the helm without interference. Throat in almost as much pain as the rest of his body from the screaming, Psiioniic felt silent soon enough; limp as spare wires wrapped around his arms and legs to keep him upright, the sharp tips digging into his bound limbs. When they seemed to hunger, they stole nutrients from him along with his power.

But when he was fully installed, Psiioniic was at ease. His thinkpan could split from then on, half on the agony of his body, and half sucked into the void of the ship's code, safe from pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is the end of the backstory!  
> Now begins our real plot!!


	4. 28374991?

**♊**

Time was nothing on this new helm, Psiioniic had learned.  
Nights blurred in with days, weeks with perigees-- the helmsman knew nothing of the world outside of himself, his ship. He  _was_ the ship, what else would he need to know but what went on in his giant mechanical body? He knew it took exactly seventeen percent of his power to run the lights, the warm water, the artificial gravity and the rest of the minor pieces of technology, knew the rest would go into flight speed and weapons, knew each crew-member's schedule without a moments hesitation, knew where each of them were at each second of the night and day-- what else could he possibly hope to know? Time was irrelevant.

Time was irrelevant, until he received an order to return to Alternia; one with a digital seal from the Imperial E-desk itself. How long had it been since the helmsman had saved the Emperor that night? Had the troll been looking for him all this time?  _Why_ was he looking for him? He had slaughtered plenty of highbloods that night, was it his time to pay for his actions? He couldn't know for certain. It would have caused him great shock if he hadn't have been plugged in, but when one's thinkpan was more ship than troll, emotions were all but a memory.  
So, he passed on the message to his mistress and master before turning around.

They, like he, couldn't argue with an Imperial Summons, and within a few nights they had touched down on Alternia's soil once again. Psiioniic was lucky enough to have a break from the agony of flying, the ship's flight capability being powered down to save 'fuel'. After all, the longer they used him, the quicker he would burn out among the cables. His power usage dwindled to that seventeen percent.

Psiioniic wondered if perhaps the summons were just a coincidence. It was no secret to him and those his owners dealt with that they had supported the Emperor's donor and were displeased with the new ruler-- perhaps they had done something wrong. Perhaps the candy-blood didn't even know he was helming this ship.  
Dying would be easy, less painful than helming, but he wasn't ready to die yet.

 

** ♋️ **

As soon as Kankri had regained some use of his hands from the crippling wounds bestowed upon him (more than a perigee passed before he managed to so much as curl his fingers a little bit), he had begun to spend all his time searching the Imperial Databases. Psions were catalogued at the moment they escaped the brooding caverns so they could be collected by the Empire for service later, and he could remember the first four digits of the number his saviour had begrudgingly given him. 2837.  
It had been obvious enough that the psion had been an adult, the shade of his chitin too dark to be a wriggler, and this narrowed the number down to 283747 before he had even found a troll that was still alive. But, it was looking to slaves not registered to Imperial ships that really narrowed the number down; the psion hadn't been wearing the flight-suit that Imperial Helmsmen wore. Those slaves died too early to have an ID number like this one, which left him with one possible number.

At last, he'd found him. 28374991.

He sent a summons as soon as he could manage, giving the coordinates to a clearing close enough to his temporary residence that he and the medicullers taking care of him could walk to meet the ship. Then, it was simply a waiting game.

 

He had expected there to be some resistance to what he told the psion's owners once they had exited the ship to meet him, but they knew just as well as he did that no Alternian citizen in the right mind could say no to their Emperor. So, with the highbloods compensated for the loss of their most powerful slave but most definitely less than impressed, they shut the ship down completely and opened the helmsblock doors to the medicullers he had brought with him.  
Kankri himself decided to stay outside.

 

** ♊ **

The bio-wires that had been stabbing and squeezing at the helmsman went limp, and the medicullers removed the unfortunate psion with as much care as they could manage. Unfortunately, they found that the largest cables-- the ones slid home straight into the ports climbing up his spine and into his skull-- had begun to fuse to the ports themselves, and by the time they had freed him, yellow blood was dripping freely down his back as he shook, gasping for air between quietly pained sobs. His thinkpan was still thinking like a ship, body not working right, but the pain was different and it confused him as much as it hurt him. He knew he was being taken out, but that was no preparation for the feeling of flesh ripping from flesh all the way along his back and at his head.

The medical personnel escorted him from the ship once they had done what they could to wipe up the blood in the hopes it would stop on its own, but it soon became clear that the injuries weren't clotting. They murmured to each other about what would need to be done to stop it, but there was nothing to be done until they reached their residence, where they had access to medical equipment. The helmsmen itself-- himself, he was a troll, not a ship-- barely caught a word from them, dizzy and exhausted, and simply stumbled along as they carefully helped him out of the ship. He managed to gather enough of his psionics to see with, but it was weak, and he could barely see a few feet in front of himself.  


All this effort, just to execute him?

 

** ♋️ **

Waiting at the foot of the ship's docking ramp was nerve-wrecking.  
Kankri wasn't quite sure what he'd see when his medicullers would exit the ship again, but finding this psion had been so long in the making that he couldn't possibly do anything but wait apprehensively, a small but worried smile on his face.

The psion that was helped down the ramp looked absolutely horrible, he couldn't possibly be a functioning troll. Kankri hadn't even noticed how small the yellowblood was, last time they had met, but now that he looked properly it was quite clear-- the troll was most definitely an adult, yes, but he couldn't be bigger than a wriggler. Yellowbloods were typically tall creatures, so why was this one so small? However, considering the slave was nothing but bones, he could only imagine the poor thing hadn't had enough nutrients to grow during his adult moult. Kankri couldn't imagine spending his entire life the size of a wriggler-- and though the combination of impossibly skinny and absolutely tiny was unsettling, like seeing a sick child, he supposed seeing that on a tall troll would be just as horrifying anyway.

The poor thing looked like he was in a lot of pain, barely able to stand and his eyes dim, but beyond that, Kankri could have sworn he looked scared.  
"28374991?" He asked softly, not wanting to frighten the small troll. By sight, it looked like this was the psion that had saved him, but he had to be absolutely sure.

 " ... Yes?" The yellowblood's voice was hoarse and very quiet, and Kankri was certain then that he was frightened. That's not what he had wanted at all. Did he not remember Kankri's promise? Hoping to calm the psion's worries, he spoke up again, voice as soothing as he could make it.

"I'm having a new palace built," He began, eyes carefully on the other troll's expression. He looked a little woozy, and more fragile than any live troll Kankri had laid eyes on before. The medicullers looked so worried, and he had a strange urge to hold the tiny psion. "And I wanted you to come live with me there. You can call me Kankri-- do you have a name? The one you used to be called, before they brought you in?"

The more he spoke, the more the psion seemed confused. Granted, he supposed this was a strange situation indeed, but what had the troll expected? He'd saved Kankri's life! Despite his confusion, he hesitantly answered, sounding just as unsure as he looked.  
"It's... I think it was Mituna."

"Mituna," 28374991 had a name, and it was Mituna. The Emperor managed a bigger smile, though there wasn't much joy behind it. This was reminding him of that horrible night perigees ago, and he was still mourning Meulin, his dearly departed matesprit. Thinking of her still brought him to tears. "It's good to meet you. I'd shake your hand, but I'm still badly hurt; and I think you are too."

The barely-trollish creature looked down at himself, wiggling seemingly stiff fingers before looking back up at him with a little sway, sharp shoulders shrugging just a little bit. The action looked like it could poke through his too-thin chitin, and seeing it through the thin fabric of his clothing was unsettling.  
"It's only a little bleeding; it'll probably stop on its own." It wasn't at all reassuring, even if Mituna meant it to be-- and 'a little' was most definitely up to interpretation.

And the medicullers' interpretation was wildly different, correcting him with a unified "It's a lot of bleeding" before Violet, the female, turned back to Kankri.  
"He'll faint if we don't stop the bleeding soon. Almost a dozen of his ports are bleeding, there aren't any signs of clotting-- we're worried there might be internal damage."

"Alright. Let's go, Mituna. They wont miss you much, but I'll be happy to have you around." It had taken so long to find this helmsman, Kankri was most definitely not prepared to allow Mituna to slip through his fingers on account of these injuries. He had saved Kankri's life, so it was time to repay the favour. Most psions didn't last a sweep on the helm-- they had gotten to Mituna early enough that he should be okay. Since they were in a hurry, their walking was of a faster pace than strictly comfortable, but the medicullers helped the psion hold himself up to make it.

"But they don't have another helmsman." The slave sounded so  _concerned_ , the comment mumbled as if he felt bad that his absence would be an inconvenience to his old owners. Legally, Kankri owned him now, but that wasn't his plan for the yellowblood. That could be made clear later, though, when he wasn't in danger of fainting from blood loss.

Nevertheless, Kankri answered his concern so he wouldn't be so worried after the less than pleasant trolls that had owned him.  
"They've been compensated." He snorted. "They didn't have Imperial dispensation to commission a warship of that size, so I pardoned them for a potential war crime. Mister Ampora is a foolish troll who would do anything to impress that fuchsia he's been courting." Oh yes, he knew these trolls-- they were among the aristocracy that attended events typically held at the palace. "I'm having it moved to the ocean so he can make it into a much grander hive than it would ever be a ship."

He received no answer, but slaves never seemed to be very talkative. That and Mituna looked hardly conscious, so he could hardly blame the troll-- especially when his legs seemed to buckle under him just as they reached the small hive the three of them had been living in since he'd been saved from the riots. It was tiny, but would have to do until the new palace was finished being built.  
Mituna was easily carried in by Galfon, the male mediculler, and laid down on his stomach over the culinary-block's table so they could try to stop the bleeding from his ports. The place was pretty barren of furniture and décor, so Kankri was left to crouch next to the table-- trying to keep the psion's attention to make sure he stayed conscious. Fainting from blood-loss would most definitely be a bad situation for such a small troll.

"How old are you?" He asked, trying for what should be an easy enough question.

 

** ♊ **

The Emperor was calling him by his hatch name, the name that had been stripped from him when he'd first been taken away, and Psiioniic wasn't sure why. He could have stuck with the psion's ID number, or if that was too long or hard to remember, asked for a title, or even just called him some sort of nickname-- that was what the others all did. He'd been called everything from 'sparky' to 'psion' to 'filth', but his hatch name was terribly unfamiliar to him. So unfamiliar, that he tended to actually forget that it was him being addressed when it was used.  
After all, it had been many sweeps since he had had any right to that name. It was a name for trolls, and he was a slave-- a ship, really. Machines had strange, glorified titles like his own. Him as a whole, his ship and his thinkpan together while he was on the helm, had been called the Battleship Condescension, after his mistress. That was normal for a battleship like him, a hatch name was not normal. But who was he to argue?

The wooden table pressed harshly against his hipbones and his ribs as he was laid down onto it, the bones sticking out from him as starkly as they were, but he chose to ignore it as he rested his cheek on the cool wood. Blinking over at the Emperor as he was asked his age, Mituna frowned a little. How old was he?  
"I don't know. Past my adult moult." He admitted. It was hard to keep track of the sweeps when the days and nights melded together; it had been a long time since he had been taken away from his lusus by the slavers.

"Alright, that's okay." Kankri spoke to him gently, like he was going to break down with a harsh word, and it just made the entire situation more surreal. "How do you feel? Aside from dizzy, I mean-- you've lost a lot of blood. Are you happy to be away from where you were? No one's ever going to make you helm again."

The questions weren't spoken exceptionally quickly, but there were several of them and Psiioniic had only recently been unplugged from his ship and was still bleeding freely-- it was hard to concentrate enough to remember them all, and even harder to gather enough energy to answer, his eyelids falling shut in compromise. He could keep talking a little while longer if he didn't have to keep them open.  
"Just... tired." He murmured, not even bothering to mention the pain radiating from his back and shooting in heavy waves to the tips of his horns all the way to the bottom of his feet and the tips of his fingers. Everything hurt, but complaining about pain was pointless; it never made it stop, anyway. Pain had become such a constant in his life, ever since the surgery that had installed his ports when he was much younger-- so it was nothing new nor alarming to him. Pain was simply life. But was he happy, though? Being away from his mistress and master made him anxious, and he missed the immersion of his helm (just as just as much as he was relieved to be away from its terrifying blackness-- he had become so lost in it that he'd bee unsure if he'd ever been a troll at all), but he wasn't in quite that much agony anymore. What did he feel? "I ... think so? Hurts a little less, now."

Mituna grit his teeth as sterile pads were pressed at his ports to soak up the blood and staunch the bleeding, but it didn't seem to be working. More blood kept dripping down and onto the table, so the medicullers turned to tools to sew up the deep gouges in the psion's back, chitin ripped apart when the bio-cables had been tugged from his ports. The sting of the needles and thread the two used was nothing compared to the pain he already felt, but the hyper-sensitive area was painful enough to have him muffling a whine. It hurt, and his head was swimming, but he had to stay awake-- he hated the migraines he developed when he woke up from a faint.  
"Why did you come find me?" So he spoke again, voice still quiet, to try and keep himself conscious; thin, crooked fingers clenched in his hair so he didn't move and ruin the stitches pulling the chitin on his back together again.

"I told you I would," The Emperor still sounded so patient with him, and the unfamiliar lack of a scathing tone felt... odd. "I'm so grateful to you, Mituna; so grateful. You saved my life."

"I don't understand." He murmured, terribly confused. As far as he was concerned, he had done nothing warranting reward-- though he really didn't want to sound ungrateful for what Kankri was doing for him, even if it was just too overwhelming to even begin processing just yet. Of course, if someone had saved his own life from such a terrible fate he'd feel a little indebted, but not in such circumstances where that person was saving him because they knew it was their duty. Saving the Emperor from the traitors had been Mituna's duty. It wasn't special. "I just did what I was supposed to do."

Violet helped him sit up on the table after his blood was mopped away from it, Galfon handing him a glass with a thick liquid in it once they were sure he wasn't going to lose consciousness and topple. Mituna himself didn't know, but the liquid was mostly protein, liquefied iron supplements and other essential vitamins, to try and make him as medically stable as possible. A straw was placed in the glass too, and he was told to drink as much as he could.  
The first sip made him scrunch his nose at the horrible taste, his head spinning as he coughed wetly after the mouthful was swallowed, the sound a crackly and congested one from low in his chest. That too was relatively normal, so after it was done and the dizzy spell was over, he took another sip from the straw.

 

**♋️**

"You did what you were supposed to," Kankri agreed mildly. "But no one else did; and you even survived going up against Gabrel Makara himself."  
That in itself was something to be proud of, in Kankri's opinion. Gabrel had been a fearsome subjuggulator, The Grand Highblood himself, terrifying and giant even to the tall Emperor; Kankri was frankly awed that this tiny, tiny psion had managed to kill him without any obvious effort. Mituna had come up to the troll's waist, or at least it had looked like it from the ground where Kankri had laid when the culling had happened. Regardless of the actual difference, the facts remained-- it was an awe-inspiring feat for such a tiny psion.

The coughing sounded awful and congested, and he turned his attention briefly to Violet to quietly ask her to check the psion for any lingering sickness. Clearly, Mituna was not yet out of the woods.

"Against who?" Mituna sounded like he was ready to pass out, though the yellowblood kept at the drink he had been given. The candy-blood knew very well, first hand in fact, that it tasted terrible, but it was good that he was still drinking it.

"The head of the largest bloodline Alternia has ever seen. Enormous bodies, matched only by their ridiculous egos. Uh-- the really big one with the clubs, that you fried with your eyes. How did you do that, by the way?" He asked as the medicullers examined the psion, absolutely fascinated with the small troll.  
Like he had thought, an awful congestion was found in his chest from cold exposure (the helmsblock was freezing, to keep the bio-ware healthy), and Violet left the hive to fetch medicine for it.

"I just, gathered my psionics and fired." Kankri realised after he'd asked that it was somewhat an unfair question. How could anyone describe a power as easy to them as breathing was to anyone else? It was simply  _incredible_ , but to Mituna, he supposed it was just normal.

"That's incredible." And he told him so, quite bluntly. This small being was such an incredible troll. He was one of thousands that Kankri had failed to help up to this point, but he was determined to do best by this psion, now that he was safe and there. The rest of them would take longer to help, but he was just as determined to do that too. He just had to wade through the paperwork and the meetings. It would take sweeps and sweeps, but he would do it.

 

There was a few moments of silence where Kankri fell into thought, remembering the nights after he had been saved from the failed coup, and he could feel his throat choking up a little as (like every other time he thought of it) his thoughts fell to his beloved Meulin.  
"I know you found my Meulin before anyone else could." He said quietly, when he knew his voice could stay even. He was given a nod in return, just a small one, but an agreement nonetheless.

Seeing her had been an absolute misery.  
She had been in pieces by the time he had been well enough to be on his feet and travel to the ruins of the old palace where she had died, but at least she had been found. The investigators that combed the place from top to bottom had said the rubble had been moved around unnaturally, and Kankri had immediately known it had been Mituna who had moved it in his search for her-- just like he'd asked of the psion.  
"Thank you," He continued softly, "For leaving her in a respectable place." Nowhere was better than the place he had laid with her on so many occasions, deeply in love. He ached for her to his core, and as his stomach twisted, he wondered dimly if he would throw up. As it happened, he would rather not.

"Of course." The return was a familiar one from lowbloods. Saying things such as 'you're welcome' were highblooded terms, though the meanings were similar enough. 'Of course' insinuated that the actions done were the only thinkable things to do; while 'you're welcome' could insinuate pride in one's actions. No, there was no pride in this. "You found her too, then."

"Of course." Kankri returned, voice turning very soft. His eyes turned down to the floor as they watered, and the lump in his throat thickened with un-spilt tears. Mituna was someone he didn't know well enough to cry in front of, so he excused himself with a quick apology before standing up and shutting himself away in the hygiene block for privacy just in time for the tears to really start flowing down his cheeks in hiccuping sobs.

 

**♊**

"It is not your fault, psion. He is not taking her death well; it will be raw for some time." Mituna stared for a few moments after the now-closed door that the Emperor had slipped away behind before looking to the mediculler that had spoken softly to him. He seemed nice, Mituna supposed. He'd never had a medical checkup so uneventful and un-invasive before.

"... I don't understand." He hadn't wanted to ask, but he simply couldn't bring himself to comprehend it; so between sips, he had spoken up. "Why do people get so attached to others like this? It makes them weak." Hence why very few slaves had genuine quadrants-- either one of them could be bought by another master, be killed or simply die at any time; it was against survival instincts for them.

"Trolls are weak by nature." The mediculler explained, after a long moment of thinking. "When we don't know true hardship, we find it easy to make bonds, and prefer those bonds to being alone. Our Emperor is a long-lived troll surrounded by long-lived trolls, and he wanted to make Lady Meulin into one, as well. She wasn't just a quadrant to him; she was everything. It bordered unhealthy, even putting aside the fact that he was blurring clear-cut quadrant lines. Now, she is gone."

"I see." The explanation, to Galfon's credit, did make sense to Mituna as he mulled it over while drinking the thick liquid he'd been given. But, he had to wonder what it was like to feel so attached to someone that he'd have any sort of emotional response to their death; and he quickly decided that he was glad he didn't know the feeling. He remembered having a pale crush on a fellow slave when he'd been a wriggler, but they'd been much older than he-- passing away during the day as they slept. But the actual emotional connection to the troll was something he didn't remember at all. Perhaps that was for the best. Trolls are strange beings, he thought to himself.

The mediculler patted the back of Mituna's shoulder once (which hurt, no matter how gentle it had been) before wandering to the small culinary block. Since the hive was so small, the respite, culinary and social blocks were all combined into one area, leaving the hygiene block beyond the door Kankri had shut himself behind. But to Mituna, it was nice compared to the freezing cold of his helmsblock and to the impersonal largeness of his ship itself. He liked that the place was small, even if it meant hiding himself away if he got scared would be nigh impossible. 

 

"Did you know you are very sick?" Galfon asked after a few minutes, Mituna almost finished his drink, between thick coughs and moments of pause with a crinkled nose to the taste. It wasn't the worst thing he'd had, but he was certainly more used to bland, tasteless or stale food. "You have been badly neglected inside your helm."

"Sick?" Mituna looked over to him, a little confused. Having been taken from his hive at a much younger age than he should have been, he hadn't had time to have gone through anything but basic school-feeding; any words he hadn't learned from that or from other slaves were foreign to him. Neglect was another word he didn't know, so even the context was impossible for him to decipher. "I don't think I understand."

It took a long moment for the mediculler to respond, and Mituna waited for the explanation patiently. What was he? He didn't understand, and it unsettled him. As much as he liked learning new things, not knowing them in the first place was going to be frustrating for him, if not embarrassing.  
"Your body does not work the way it should. Coughing, excessive pain, very warm skin, your meagre weight; all of that is bad. It means you are not at your best, because no one took care of you properly."

"It wasn't anyone's job to take care of me." Mituna explained back, as if that were a logical excuse for it. He was a slave, after all-- why would his mistress and master take care of him? That was  _his_ job to do for  _them_. Wouldn't them doing things for him defeat the purpose of him being their slave in the first place? He didn't understand. But, the idea that he wasn't at his best (like he should be, should always be no matter what) was unsettling, and his gaze fell to his feet, expression troubled. "Does that mean I haven't been doing my job properly?"

"Oh, heavens, no. If anything, it means you have been doing your job better than anyone else; so do not worry about that. When you are not at your best, but are still _doing_ your best, it means you are very strong."  
The psion wasn't unfamiliar to the concept that he was a powerful slave, and from what he understood, 'strong' was another word for 'powerful'-- he simply gave a slight shrug. He just did his job as best as he could; it was a relief he had been doing it right.   
"But that does not mean no one should have taken care of you. It was your keepers' jobs to keep you healthy. No cough, fever or bleeding, plenty of food and water, and a warm, dry place to sleep if they were not going to provide you with a recuperacoon. On top of that, your chitin is like paper-- where did you moult?"

"In my old helm. I powered a smaller ship, before. It didn't take very much energy to run, compared to my new one." Mituna supplied, not at all bothered by the fact. He was a helmsman, of course he would have moulted there! Work didn't stop for silly nuances like bodily functions, it was inefficient.

"... You moulted  _in_ your helm?" The mediculler seemed to halt in his thought process at the information as Mituna nodded to confirm it, expression absolutely horrified. However, Mituna was much too exhausted to use enough of his power to catch details like facial expressions, so he missed the look. Fortunately for him, he could understand the tone just fine. "You should not be alive, Mituna. The pain should have killed you-- the  _bacteria_ should have killed you." Galfon shook his head, sounding just as horrified as he looked, with perhaps a drop of astonishment.   
"That is disgusting behaviour from them; they would have known that was not safe. Without proper nutrients and sopor, your growth was likely stunted as well... I will get you some supplements and we will see if we can thicken your chitin before someone guts you, but your height, I cannot help. None of us would harm you, mind. You are safe with us-- myself, my colleague and, of course, our Emperor."

The pain of his moult had been much more painful than the installation of his ports, and considering the agony of that surgery, that was quite the large statement. But, he believed he had been fortunate for it. He had been the only slave owned by his master and mistress to have survived through their adult moult; at least in his lifetime.  
"I was lucky, that I was plugged in. At least like that, a lot of my thinkpan was too distracted by the system to feel all of the pain. I would have felt more of it if I hadn't been on the helm. But how does everyone else moult, if that was so wrong?"

"Most trolls spend their moults largely unconscious in sopor baths." Galfon provided, though Mituna missed the fact that he was mildly horrified by the idea that the psion was grateful to have been helming while he had been moulting. Unquestionably, this troll was very broken. What their Emperor expected to do with the small thing was confusing to him, too. He just seemed to be resigned to his suffering-- was there a point to this?

It took a moment for Mituna to even remember what sopor was. He knew from what the others had told him, when it had been their turns to fill their owners' recuperacoons. When he made the connection, he gave a short hum of understanding. Curious. Trolls would risk being unconscious for that long? Moults weren't exactly a quick affair, after all.  
"That sounds... dangerous; to stay weak for that long." He commented. How did they know they wouldn't die in their sleep?

"It makes you stronger for much longer than it leaves you weak." The mediculler shrugged. Usually, a troll's moirail was there to ensure the process went well, and that would be enough protection to ensure a moulting troll's safety.

 

Just as their conversation seemed to die down, Galfon's colleague stepped back into the hive with the medication she had left to fetch.  
"These should clear up that cough." She handed two pills to Mituna with a gentle smile, instructing him to swallow them without chewing. The psion decided she was pleasant too, even if all this pleasantness was still weird to him. Her name, though he didn't know this yet, was Violet.

Mituna thanked her quietly before taking them with the last few sips of his drink, the sensation of the pills in his throat most definitely unsettling. He wished he could have chewed them first.

"Sure thing. When you're not dizzy, we have a cot for you; you can lay down and sleep. There  _is_ a recuperacoon, but our Emperor needs it." She informed him with a gesture to the cot on the other side of the multi-purpose room. That was more than fine with Mituna, who hadn't touched sopor since he'd been taken away as a wriggler. He didn't need it, and nodded his understanding.

Violet's next comment was interrupted by a sudden, wet choking sound from the hygiene block, and she rushed over to slip through the door and check on Kankri. He didn't sound like he was alright, but it was absolutely none of Mituna's business, so other than a cringe, he didn't react. Instead, he chose to simply take in his unfamiliar surroundings to pass the time until his dizziness had gone away-- then, he could sleep.

The hive was sparsely decorated, but built for adult trolls much taller than the psion, with preparation plateaus as high as Mituna's sternum and a thermal hull much taller than him even if he held his arms above his head with his fingers pointed. He was no taller than he had been as a wriggler, and the furniture dwarfed him. It was curious, despite the fact that he was very used to being the smallest person in the room.  
The whole place was spotless. In the other part of the main room, a resting couch with thick, plain cushions faced a television, though it was small, and in the corner, Mituna's cot laid in wait for him. It was also quite small, but had pillows and thick blankets to keep him warm. Across the room, in the other corner, was a recuperacoon. It was probably the biggest thing in the building, but Kankri wasn't the smallest troll, and he needed the space.

When the dizziness stopped, his exhaustion started to kick in full force again. Helmsmen physically could not sleep while on the helm, and he was starting to really feel the effect on his body and mind. So, with a quick word to Galfon first, he ended up taking his leave to curl up in the cot (which was _still_ bigger than what he strictly needed); taking a moment to figure out where the blankets and pillows should be situated to be most comfortable and snug around him, before bundling up in the warmth and falling asleep.


	5. A Proper Introduction is in Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning, there's going to be a brief description/talk of eye-gore in this chapter. With it, however, is also going to be the awaited proper explanation about Mituna's eyesight. What's weird about his eyes, how he sees, what happened to them-- all is answered here!  
> If eye-gore squicks/triggers you but you still want to know how Mituna's sight works in OOC depth (no gore is present, link is SFW), I wrote an explanation post on my tumblr about it; you can find that here: http://idonthaveawittyusername.tumblr.com/post/140908858709/eyesight-headcanon-psiioniic

**♋️**

Mouth tasting of bile and face a blotchy red, Kankri came out of the hygiene block at last; turning his sore eyes to Mituna's innocently sleeping form. The psion looked incapable of the incredible power Kankri knew he possessed, so small and bundled up in the soft blankets around him-- it had the Emperor relaxing a little, knowing that at least while he slept, the ex-slave could be young and free despite his mental state not allowing it while he was awake.

He stayed up and settled on the sofa with a book, not ready to give himself over to sleep. With a second thought in the effort to keep himself awake, the television was turned on as well, the volume soft. Kankri was afraid of what awaited him in his dreams, of who awaited him-- dark and massive shadows of the giant Makara dangling his beloved in front of him like an endless curse on his name. It was his fault she had been murdered that night, her voice would scream at him.  
There was nothing left of the Makara's body, thanks to the small troll curled up in blankets not more than five steps from him, but Kankri was not free of his torture.

 

It was only an hour or so afterwards that the psion woke, sparks of red and blue catching Kankri's eye as Mituna jolted from his sleep. He looked confused and a little alarmed, and it took a moment for the Emperor to realise why. The poor thing probably forgot where he was, but as he was beginning to remember again he began to settle down again among the pillows, the sparks dying out.

"You're still awake." Mituna's soft voice broke the silence after a minute, just after Kankri had turned his attention back to his book, and the Emperor looked up from its pages again to speak with him. Mituna's eyes flared brightly for a few seconds, and Kankri watched with no small amount of curiosity-- he couldn't even see the psion's face from the angle his cot was at and yet he could still see the light from his power. Psionic trolls were fascinating.

"Yes," He agreed, much more collected than when Mituna had gone to sleep. "You didn't sleep very long."

"There's not enough moonlight to get everything done if I sleep any longer." The yellowblood sounded as if he thought the reasoning obvious, and while Kankri could very much understand the feeling, having been swamped with paperwork and meetings before the riots, he couldn't quite understand what Mituna thought he had to do to be awake so soon. He hadn't had much sleep at all, especially considering Kankri knew very well that helmsmen didn't sleep while on duty. Mituna had been plugged in for perigees. He had to have been exhausted.

"What do you have to do?" He asked, curiosity taking hold. Mituna was a curious person, he didn't need to have known the psion long to have figured such a thing out, and Kankri wanted to learn more about his saviour-- including how he thought and saw the world. Frankly, he knew that a slave's view of the world was a sad, resigned and often bitter one, but he still wanted to know for this one in particular.

"Fly." The answer was an immediate one, again in that obvious tone. "Or, I used to. I don't think I can go back to sleep now, anyway." He almost sounded a little sad for that moment, and Kankri could feel his brows drawing together. It was common enough for slaves to build up a dependency on their consistent jobs and their owners, but it was still somewhat upsetting to see. He had brought the psion with him to free him, and it seemed like Kankri had his work cut out for him-- he wanted Mituna to become completely free of his ex-owners, body and mind.

"You could fly for yourself." Kankri suggested lightly. Perhaps if Mituna went flying on his own, he could start really appreciating being free. "Surely, you've flown on your own before. Discounting the night we met, of course."

"No, I was never allowed. My collar shut everything but my eyes down." That little frown returned as Mituna sounded just a touch sad, but his tone perked up to average again after a moment as the subject was changed. "That's a book, right?"

"Yes; it's a book." Kankri blinked at the psion, wetting his lips as he looked over at Mituna's cot. The psion was still curled up and laying down-- how could he possibly see what was in Kankri's lap? "You aren't even sitting up, how can you tell?"

The question seemed to have Mituna sitting up, and Kankri held back a small smile as his crooked fingers pulled the blankets up with him to remain wrapped around his shoulders. "I could see, mh," Mituna paused for a moment, like he was missing the word he wanted to use, before continuing. "I could see the shape of it; and I couldn't think of anything else it could be."

Mituna's strange wording didn't really register with Kankri properly, and though it sounded a little off, he simply disregarded it as Mituna's difficulties with wording things quite right. He was lacking in education-- it was to be expected that he'd have trouble communicating fluently. "It  _is_ a book; it's about architecture. There was a lot I didn't like about the old palace. All that unnecessary extravagance, with nothing to just  _enjoy_."

"What's architecture?" Mituna asked him, and the Emperor could swear that those big eyes just made him look more curious and innocent than he had any right to be. Well, he had plenty of right to be curious about things he didn't have the education to know, but Kankri knew that the psion wasn't exactly an innocent troll. Not really, even if he didn't realise it himself. He'd been through terrible things in his short life, but was completely inexperienced in the world outside his ex-owners' commands; innocent to the real world in a way he shouldn't be.

"Well, architecture is the art of a building." He began to explain, trying to pick words that he knew Mituna would understand. It wouldn't do well to try to explain things with words the psion wouldn't understand in the first place-- it defeated the point. "Shapes and maths and designing. There are pictures; would you like to look?"

Patient as ever, Kankri waited as his new acquaintance nodded and de-tangled himself from his bundle of blankets so he could step out of his cot. The sight of the psion deciding to bring one of them with him was a little satisfying-- he was recognising things he wanted, that was good! Kankri patted the seat of the sofa next to him, waiting for Mituna to sit there so he could look at the book too.  
"Do you know what you want for your new building?" The yellowblood asked as he settled, shifting his blanket around his shoulders and keeping it securely there for warmth.

"Mhm. I want high ceilings and big windows with nice curtains; and a big observatory with a spiral staircase where I can look at the stars." Kankri described, a small smile on his face as he imagined it. The old palace had been too impersonal, too cold. He wanted a place he could make his own. "Softly slanted roofs and winding paths and a garden. Somewhere I can live comfortably, and maybe get a family going."  
The last one would take some time, he knew. It would take a long time to get over Meulin, but he knew that his beloved would want him to move on and be happy. He could honour her memory like that, some night.

"That sounds nice." The quiet psion said to him, though he continued after a moment with a tiny frown of confusion. "Wouldn't it be dangerous, though? To have it so open?"

Ah, he was thinking logically-- like helmsman always did. Mituna, like the others, would have been hooked thinkpan-first into his ship's security system, so of course he was thinking of security.  
"I plan to hire guards, and plenty of them." Kankri explained, patient. "Provide them with food and housing and support for their families; keep them more loyal than the last lot. It'll help with keeping the place safe, I'm sure."

"Maybe having a system that doesn't run with only trolls would work well, too?" Mituna blinked up at him, seeming just a little confused. Trolls weren't perfect, they made mistakes that computers didn't. It made sense, Kankri supposed, that the ex-helmsman was confused about his choice-- especially after what had happened to the old palace.

"I'm terrible with technology. I would have no idea where to even begin." Kankri chuckled, turning the page of his book to show Mituna a picture. He couldn't read, it was safe to assume, so the pictures would be good enough.

The psion's head was tilted to the book by then, and his eyes were flaring brighter than usual. They had been so dim when he'd been rescued from his helm, but now, they were much more luminescent than he'd seen in a psion that wasn't actively using their powers. Maybe it was just Mituna's power level showing. Kankri hadn't met a psion so powerful before, after all. "If you'd like, I could make something. It should be easy, to build one like the one in my ship."

Mituna's offer had Kankri pausing, his mood sobering a little. "... Yes, if  _I_ like. But what about whether  _you_ like or not? I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything for me, Mituna. I didn't free you from your owners to become  _my_ slave."  
Kankri waited for a response from the yellowblood, patient as can be. But, he looked more than just a little confused, and the Emperor could only hope he wasn't making Mituna anxious by calling out his no-doubt ingrained assumption.  
Mituna wasn't his slave, though, and he never would be.

"Whose am I?" Mituna asked, after a long few moments. The question was painfully honest, and though Kankri had expected it, he still didn't like the answer at all. But, he'd have time with Mituna to slowly teach him out of the toxic mindset he was stuck in. He just had to be patient and accepting-- and that, he excelled in.  
"Well, I had just intended you to be your own." He informed the psion, voice gentle. What a strange concept it must be to Mituna, to not belong to anyone.

"I can't own myself." There it was, the yellowblood's tone was beginning to turn a little bit distressed at the new concept he was being presented. "That's not the... not the purpose I was hatched for."

"What's the purpose?" He challenged Mituna, though his own tone was still a relatively gentle one. "Why can't you own yourself, but someone without psionics can? What's really stopping you from wanting things?"

"It's not my place to." Mituna's answer this time was the strongest one he'd heard from the small troll, and it had Kankri's 'pusher twisting unpleasantly in his chest. It hurt to hear it, but it made him want to help Mituna even more than before. He  _would_ help Mituna get better. "I do want things, but that doesn't mean I can get them. My purpose is to serve. I can't _not_ do it. Then I have  _no_ purpose."

"You're not a number, Mituna. You're a troll; your own troll, who thinks and breathes and eats on his own. You're going to have to come to terms with that-- even if you do that by doing what you think other trolls want from you. What  _I_ want is for you to think of what you want." Okay, so maybe that was a little convoluted, but it was the only way he believed Mituna would listen to him. If he wanted to do what Kankri wanted, then what better thing for the Emperor to want than for Mituna to experience what he was suppressing? "Be it to eat snacks and curl up here with me, or even to fly far away and never come back."

Long and crookedly bony fingers fiddled with the blanket Mituna had wrapped around him for warmth, the ex-slave obviously anxious about their conversation. Kankri didn't want to upset him, but he needed to push a little bit to start moving against all those terrible things Mituna thought about himself and the world.  
"I don't know what I want." His quiet voice admitted, sounding careful. Was he trying not to be difficult? Kankri could only guess.

The Emperor nodded, knowing very well that the topic was upsetting his new acquaintance. His own patience wasn't a never-ending flow, and he needed to take the metaphorical step back before he became frustrated. That wouldn't help, after all.  
"Its okay not to want anything right now. You have the rest of your life to want things; and it could be a very long life, indeed."

There was a long moment of silence between them before Mituna spoke in a murmur, fiddling with the blanket between his skinny fingers. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken like that."

"Spoken like what?" Kankri's face screwed up in confusion. He hadn't even realised that Mituna had been speaking out of turn; it was just a conversation, right? Either he was very, very out of practice when it came to how slaves were taught to speak (not to, unless told to very specifically), or Mituna's owners had been very strict about not letting him speak. Either way wasn't good-- he wanted the psion to be able to speak to him comfortably. "You just spoke to me like anyone else would. You can talk all you want, and argue. Life's boring if everyone agrees; it turns into a real circle-self-pailing situation. I know it's very different from what you're used to, but this will become the new norm for you, I promise."

"But... why is this so important to you?" Mituna asked, looking like he very much wanted to disappear into the couch. If it hadn't have been so sad, it might have been cute, in a stray meowbeast sort of way.

That, Kankri could answer-- the words flowed easily from him, the topic a personal one.  
"Because you're trapped by an institution that was put in place by my donor, Kannus. He was a mad-troll, and I want to fix absolutely everything he had his hands in. Slavery, the torture of psions like yourself, the terrible infrastructure, all of that nonsense." He explained, suddenly vehement as he grasped for a startled Mituna's hand. Gods, he wanted the psion to understand, and he could  _make_ him understand, but he wouldn't manipulate Mituna's emotions like that. He couldn't do that to him. "He was a monster, and I want this world to be different while I rule. I want it to be different for you, from here on out."

Mituna seemed to observe him for a moment, and it turned out that even without shifting the troll's emotions, he seemed to understand.  "I'm sure it will be." He said, and Kankri couldn't help the wide grin that spread across his face-- this was at least a tiny bit of progress!

"Thank you." He gave Mituna's hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it so it could find its way back into the psion's self-contained blanket bundle. "I'll give you reason to keep believing me."

 

 

"Do you want to go for a walk?" Kankri asked, a little while later when he could think of nothing else he could do. They had lapsed into a mostly comfortable silence, but for two people used to being busy, it felt like it had been a much longer time than it had actually been. It was going to be a long and terribly boring sweep waiting on the new palace to be finished.

As he had somewhat expected, Mituna nodded at him, and once his blanket was placed with the others in his cot, they left the small hive. It was only an hour or so before the sun would come up, but that left plenty of time for a stroll around the place if they didn't go too far.

He glanced at the psion as the air between them hummed with energy, finding Mituna lifted only a few inches from the ground.  
"You're only going to go that high?" If Kankri could fly and had been prevented from it for all his life, he'd shoot to the stars to see what they were like above the clouds. Maybe Mituna just needed a gentle reminder that he could do that. "Why not go up as high as you can stand? You have the freedom to do that now. No limiters, no rules."

"I could probably go to space, if I wanted to. But I'd just die. I might fly above the hives another night." Mituna shrugged his bony shoulders, and Kankri just couldn't understand what was keeping him down there. "For now, I think that gathering what I can about down here is more important."  
There was a tiny upwards twist of the psion's lips, a small and crooked smile-- the  _first_ one Kankri had seen on him-- before he kept speaking. "I haven't had enough practice to go as fast as I'd want to, anyway. My thinkpan would be too slow to process what I see, and I'd probably crash into a building. It'd be rude for me to make a bloody yellow mess on someone's hive."

A joke. Mituna had told a joke. Macabre as it was, it was still  _something_ , and Kankri laughed softly at it. This was good. "Hitting a hive isn't so likely as running straight into a tree. There are plenty around, here."

"Both a hive and a tree would still end up in the same mess." The psion snorted, and the Emperor couldn't help a chuckle. Well, he had a good point. "And trees are even harder to see when you go very fast... They're taller than you are." He sounded almost surprised when he noticed the flora, tipping his head back a little to observe it all. The movement was odd, and not quite angled right to see the tops of them. Strange.

"They're allowed to grow wild here, it's quite normal, and they don't stay smaller than me for very long." What sort of a life had this yellowblood lived, that he didn't even know that trees naturally grew so tall? Had he never been let outside, to a place properly green and alive? Or-- oh.  _Oh_.

The little hints were starting to fall into place for Kankri. The way Mituna moved was disjointed and sometimes awkward, and the way he spoke, it was like he had to work excessively hard to notice things that trolls should notice easily.  He said he could see the shape of Kankri's book, but still hadn't known for sure what it was until he clarified it. Surely, there had to be something seriously wrong with this troll's vision.  
"You're blind." He said to Mituna, surprised at his own realisation. "You're... using your psionics to see?"

The upwards tilt of Mituna's head shifted towards him, and Kankri was stunned with the slight nod he was given. He'd been right, Mituna  _was_ blind. "I am. It's not... always right, and I can't usually see really small things very well, but it works well enough not to really bother me. That's why I'm not walking, I'll trip on the small rocks."

Mituna was... something else. Something otherworldly. After all this, with all this new information, it was hard to think of Mituna as just a troll. He was un-trollish in the most interesting of ways.  
Weak and defenceless, but more safe than anyone could be.  
Quiet, but his words meant volumes when he did speak.  
Blind, but fully aware.  
"Do you know what _you_ look like?" Kankri was fascinated by him, and for a moment, he wondered what made Mituna who he was. What he was. What was he, even? The Emperor caught himself thinking like Kavvus with his wondering, and shoved the thoughts away bitterly. Mituna was a troll, nothing more and nothing less. He was just an innocent bystander in a horrific system.

"No, not really." The psion was back to looking in front of himself, presumably so he wouldn't trip. How could he even see with those powers? They weren't particularly tactile-based, after all. "I did when I was a wriggler, when I saw on windows and things, but I never really had the time to pay much attention to it-- I don't remember much of it anyway. During my adult moult, I lost my sight; I don't know what I look like now."

"Are you able to use your powers to look at yourself, like the way you see me and the trees?" Maybe that was another thing that needed to be done. Maybe it would be good for Mituna to see himself, so he could remember that he was his own troll.

"I hadn't thought about it before, but, I don't think I can." There was a pause, like Mituna was considering something, before he continued to speak. "It works like... Waves. The waves come out from my eyes and... pulse? Whatever interrupts the pulses bounces back to me, but the rest doesn't, and it makes shapes. But little things are mostly too hard, it's all mostly rough guessing, unless I put even more power into looking for details-- but that's too tiring to do all the time. I don't know how, if I can do it at all, to turn the pulses back to map my face out in a way I could understand it."

Kankri was quiet for a moment, almost startled by how much Mituna had said and the meaning behind it. He didn't think he'd heard the psion speak that much before-- he'd always been so short in his answers.  
"For someone completely uneducated, you're a very intelligent troll." He complimented. By no means did a lack of education mean a troll couldn't be smart, and this was one of those very obvious cases. He wondered how smart Mituna would have been if he'd had a proper education. As it was, he seemed to understand the concept of echolocation, which was incredible. "You figured that all out on your own, how it works?"

"I had to, or I'd get culled for being useless." Mituna shrugged, tilting his head slightly as if he was reading the obstacles slightly more forward again, rather than looking at Kankri. He wondered if the psion could read all of his surroundings at once, with enough energy, or if he had to look in the right direction. Either way, he was using an incredible system to function as normally as possible. "It doesn't happen straight away, the understanding part. I figured it out when I was trying to learn mistress' hive again-- that I could map things out. But it takes work to read the map I make. I had to figure it out so I could actually use it."

Mind desperately, deeply boggled by the situation, Kankri shook his head. He was pretty sure that if he had been put in that position where he had to learn to see things like that, he would have just been culled. "That's a hard way to live life, Mituna. You're kind of my hero in even more ways, now."

The psion glanced at him with an odd look, as if  _Kankri_ was the strange one that needed to be figured out. Like he didn't understand the larger troll. Kankri supposed he probably didn't.  
"Hard, but not impossible. I just... wasn't ready to die yet. I'm not ready; so I do what I need to do."

"What  _are_ you ready for, then? What're you going to do with yourself?" He asked, wondering if Mituna was wanting to plan something equally as fascinating or boggling as he was a person. "Are you really going to program? I can get you a good computer, if you'd like."

 

** ♊ **

Brows drawing in just slightly as he considered the question, Mituna's fangs scraped the inside of his cheek. He had no plans for extravagance or even excitement-- he simply wanted something small and quaint, something quiet. He wanted to settle down and not be anxious or scared or confused, but he wasn't sure how realistic such a thing even was.  
The closest thing to that would be working on the security system, like he'd offered. But, like most other options, that had problems too. He wasn't sure how he could possibly read off of the computer screen. At least with books, he could sense the slight dents in the pages that the text and pictures left from being pressed into the paper-- though it took an immense amount of concentration and a good deal more power, and he could only do it for a short while with such little practice. Not that he could read in the first place. But a computer had no such dents on the screen, and he'd have no way of knowing when he made a mistake until it was much too late. It would be a challenge for his memory, which was terrible enough as it is, since he had been such a visual person before he'd lost his sight. It was hard to remember something by sound or thought alone.

"I think so." He answered, finally. "The code will be easy to design, it'd be similar to the one I worked with on my ship; but it'll take a lot of time. With programs like this one, if you make even one mistake, it won't work the way it should. Since I can't see my mistakes when they're in a system I'm not hooked into, I'd have to try and not make any at all. If I do, I'll have to start over."

The Emperor hummed in thought, and Mituna took to fiddling with the thin fabric of his shirt. He needed to keep doing things, keep working or at least moving, or he'd just start sparking and become anxious-- and that reaction never helped at all.  
"If you need to have your 'pan inside the computer to be able to interact with the code, maybe we could find some non-organic jacks to connect with your neck ports." He suggested, and Mituna found himself frowning a little at the unfamiliar terminology. He didn't understand. "Just metal plugs, to transmit the signals electronically? Or electrically?"

"I don't know how my ports work," He admitted after a moment, resisting the urge to reach back and touch the intrusions that sat in his skin at the back of his neck. They hurt with contact, and touching them too much would make them bleed strange liquids and swell up, not to mention give him migraines, hot skin and dizzy episodes-- it was unpleasant to deal with. "But if you think it would work... I wouldn't need them too much, I don't think. Just before it all needs compiling; so I don't need to start again for each mistake."

"I want you to experience life with as little time plugged into anything as you can. Unless you  _want_ to be plugged in. But-- you were so miserable in disoriented when we found you. And bloody." Mituna didn't really understand the Emperor's reasoning with not wanting him plugged into anything. It was his purpose, whether he liked it or not, after all. But, he could respect if that wasn't what the man wanted for him; he shrugged lightly, head tilted absently in the direction they were headed so he could continue to map out where they were going and their general surroundings. The effort of floating and seeing was kind of making him tired, unused to the concentration it took to use the energy when it wasn't just sucked up and converted into a ship, but he did his best to ignore it. He'd done plenty before while much more exhausted than this.  
"It's easy, to be plugged in. Your thinkpan doesn't listen to your body, after a while, so the pain is easier to set aside a bit more." He explained absently, crooked skinny fingers rubbing at the corner of his eye. "I miss being able to get lost in the system and look at the code, but not much else was nice about that job."

Mituna managed to spot a nod from Kankri out of the corner of his vision, and was assured by the movement that the man understood-- at least as much as he could. "Well, that's something, right? You know you like coding."

"It makes sense." The conclusion wasn't quite obvious to the psion himself. Describing something as 'nice' wasn't what he immediately would connect with liking it, but when he gave it thought, he supposed the Emperor was right. Seemed like a kind of low standard, but maybe Mituna was overcomplicating things. Maybe he expected too much of the elusive feeling of supposedly finding something that gave him joy. He just felt slightly less indifferent about it. "I like that I can make sense of it, when other things confuse me. Everything else takes a long time to learn; it's frustrating sometimes. That means I like it?"

"It certainly seems like it." And with that answer, Mituna accepted the information.

 

 

"We should head back," The larger troll suggested. "I don't want to get lost-- we walked further than I meant to take you."  
Kankri sounded apologetic, but Mituna didn't mind that they had gone too far, nor did he mind having to turn around. He had no idea what he'd occupy himself with when they went back, but he hoped to try to take a short nap before his headache got worse.

Mituna didn't even realise that he'd been lost to his thoughts until his silence prompted Kankri to speak again, and he realised absently that the other seemed to be uncomfortable with silence. He had no idea why, since he himself found silence to be so peaceful, but he supposed each troll was different.  
"I did. It's nice to do something; move around." He reflected, "Strange, but nice." After a brief moment, he bit the metaphorical bullet and asked a question in an effort to keep the conversation flowing-- so the other troll didn't feel uncomfortable again. "Do you not like the quiet?"

"No, I dislike it very much." Something about the tone the Emperor was using made Mituna wonder if asking had been somehow insensitive, but that wondering was answered when Kankri continued. "My Meulin, she sang very softly, and she talked to herself a lot; usually having conversations she felt she hadn't had the right way. I got used to her breaking the silence, now it upsets me."

Listening curiously, Mituna wondered what it was like to become so used to hearing someone's voice like that, though he quickly came to the conclusion that it must be similar to becoming accustomed to the soft, errant noises in his helmsblock. He was used to silence, his shallow ragged breathing, soft liquid drips from the ceiling and the slither of biowires against his skin, not people's voices.  
"Would it help if you did the same? Speaking to yourself to break the quiet?"

"It's not the same." Was the reply he was given, and he could hear the upset in the man's tone. "She was just like that; it isn't anything like who I am."  
What was he supposed to say to that?  
When he'd been much younger, new to his 'employment' in his first helm, he'd been very much dependant on his mistress' other slaves to teach him and keep him company so he didn't become anxious. When they had been unable to, he had spoken to himself until he lost his voice to make the noise he'd needed. But, as time had passed, he had grown indifferent to noise, and then later disliking of it. He didn't like loud noises, sudden ones or piercing ones.

"Someone told me once that they believed the dead linger to keep people company." He mentioned, though he didn't understand it himself. The concept of the supernatural and the spiritual tended to escape him, but Kankri knew more than him, so perhaps he'd understand. "Maybe she's still speaking, but it's too quiet for you to hear."

There was a long pause where he had to second guess himself. Maybe that had been just a daytime story for wrigglers like he had been. But then Kankri spoke again, tone even more upset, and the psion only became more confused.  
"That's worse. I'd rather her be gone forever rather than lingering and trying to speak with me still."  
Mituna just couldn't find it in himself to understand. The dead didn't have feelings. It didn't make any sense to him, but he supposed it was none of his business. This was a personal topic for Kankri, clearly, and he wasn't going to pry. After all, there was no way for him to understand, even if it was explained-- he'd never cared for someone like Kankri had for Meulin. So, he murmured an "if that's what you prefer" and left the conversation at that.

 

 

** ♊  **♋️** **

"This is our little hive, here." Kankri spoke up, placing his hand lightly onto Mituna's shoulder to stop him before they passed the right place. He had no idea of the level of detail Mituna's sight gave him, so he wasn't sure if this place looked any different to him than the others surrounding it. After all, it was quite unremarkable-- a modest place between two slightly larger hives, compressed with alleyways only wide enough for waste binds. The streets were dirt and feet-beaten, narrow and crooked and poor in structure. Infrastructure needed to be worked on across Alternia thanks to Kannus' regime, and Kankri had plans for its improvement.

To Mituna, it all simply seemed fine. Normal. The hives all looked the same from the average glance, and when he was stopped, he couldn't help a slight frown as he concentrated on getting as much information as he could about his surroundings. All simply unremarkable-- there was nothing outstanding that he could pick this hive out from the others if he ever needed to, and that wouldn't do.  
He took a step closer to the door, away from Kankri's touch, and placed a palm on it-- determined to find  _something_ different, just in case of a future emergency.

The bright lights in his eyesockets dimmed to nothing, much to Kankri's fascination, travelling in rapidly vibrating thrums down his arm and to his hand, waves of harmless energy passing over the external features of the hive. Every bump and crack was observed, the presence of another room beneath the ground found, and when he stretched his power further, he found that to be an uncommon feature. The hive with six small cracks to the left side and an underground room was the hive they were staying in. He could remember that.  
After the long few moments he took to process the information he'd felt, his hand dropped to his side again and the door opened without anything but the lights twisting the handle for him, and he stepped aside for Kankri to walk through the doorway.

"Your orbs are black." Kankri mumbled as he stepped in, dumbfounded as the small psion's powers began to collect behind his eyelids again. Blinking a few times to become used to the sensation of the ever-present buzzing behind his lids, Mituna tilted his head towards Kankri for a moment, considering his assessment. He supposed it would probably look like he had black seeing-orbs.

"No," Mituna disagreed despite the interesting observation, pointing it out as incorrect. "I don't have any; not anymore."  
Kankri's stomach twisted unpleasantly at the finality of the yellowblood's statement, and once they were both inside the hive, he shut the door behind them quietly. Galfon gave a small handful of supplement pills to Mituna along with a glass of cold and sweet juice, instructing him to swallow them with the liquid without chewing. They were to help harden his chitin and clear his lungs. As Mituna followed the instruction, Kankri just found he had to press further.  
"I thought you said you just went blind during your moult."

When the pills were swallowed with a sip of juice and he'd gotten passed the unsettling sensation of the solid things in his throat, Mituna absently noted that he very much liked the taste of the juice. He hadn't had something so sweet before, and he resolved to drinking it slowly so he could enjoy it for longer.  
"I did." He agreed, both hands gently clutching at his cold glass. "My elder said they must have dried out beyond what could be fixed. When Mistress found out, she said I wouldn't need them anymore, so Master took them out for her." This was nothing odd to him really, quite old news, and he shifted his hold of the glass to one hand so the other could visually explain-- one of his thumbs pointing to the bottom of his right eye socket, tilting upwards sharply as he popped his tongue in cheap imitation of the unprofessional, hurried removal of his orbs.

Kankri flinched in disgust when Mituna so calmly approximated the removal, horrified; but Mituna made no comment or action to show he'd noticed-- though he most definitely had. He had been about to speak when Galfon nodded, not seeming at all disturbed.  
"If you weren't able to submerge your head in sopor during your moult, or even close your eyes, they likely did go bad. Honestly, your previous owners might have been saving you even more trouble down the road, since you would have lost your orbs to septic deterioration instead if they'd stayed."  
Kankri supposed being eyeless would be better than dying of infection, but he still couldn't believe the procedure had been so... unprofessional. Surely, Mituna should have been unconscious for it.

Unlike Kankri, Mituna only seemed fascinated. He had a particular interest in the macabre, regardless of his lack of education. He was a quick learner, and he  _liked_ learning, too.  
"What's septic deterioration?" He asked, curious. 

The Emperor made a disgusted noise at the honest question and shook his head, heading to the couch to settle down and pick up his book again. He, unlike the psion, was not a fan of dark and disgusting things. So, he did his best to tune out Mituna's questions to Galfon relating to the subject.

 

"You two are the worst." He huffed, flipping his middle finger at them with one hand as their conversation seemed to be at a close.

"What is that?" Mituna asked, in return to the gesture and ignoring the huff itself, wandering over to the couch to settle down as Galfon dressed to leave for the day-- Violet having left while the two were out on their walk. He hadn't been brought up in an environment where hand gestures were often used, and he had barely caught which finger had been raised, let alone figured out a meaning to it.  
"It's rude," Kankri assured him, holding the gesture up to him again so he could get a clearer look. Now that he knew about Mituna's sight, he was planning to try making things easier for him to visually understand-- even if that meant trying to do things a little slower when he gestured. "It means 'fuck you', in a manner entirely unrelated to concupiscent interaction."

Mituna simply observed the gesture in amusement before glancing back up at Kankri's face. "That's... so silly. It's just a finger."  
The comment had Kankri chuckle at him, a little delighted at the slightly sassy retort, but that conversation topic died there. He had a more pressing question to ask, and while the light-hearted conversation was nice, he felt this to be more important.

"How are you holding up?" He asked, his light smile melting into a slight frown as Mituna's thin shoulders lifted just slightly into a small shrug. Kankri had expected that the psion would be much more excited with his freedom-- what was wrong with this troll? He was sick but getting care, he was free, in the company of a troll that liked him, and given a warm, comfortable place to rest his little head. How was he not ecstatic? What, apart from the obvious mutilation of his person, was wrong with this troll?  
But then again, how could he wonder that? It was obvious. He'd had it so terribly for so long that he just wasn't processing how wonderful his new life could be. Perhaps he'd register it all later. Kankri could only hope.

"As well as I can be, I think." Mituna mumbled after a moment, as if he knew his answer was inadequate. "All the new places are strange, talking to people's strange, and I'm not used to not being plugged in. It's hard being a troll again; but it's nice not to hurt as much anymore. I think I might be shocked."

"I think you must be." Contrary to his own belief, though, Kankri was surprised by Mituna's self assessment. He agreed with the psion slowly, closing his book. "I worry about what it is that you'll feel when the shock wears off; that's all."  
To that, Mituna had no answer, and he could only offer another shrug. He wasn't a vocal person, and Kankri knew he preferred gestures over speaking. But the both of them were fidgeting, so they had to do something regardless of that preference. But what to do?

"Listen, are you hungry? We can try and learn how to cook, together." He offered, as a way to pass the time, continue conversation, have a meal and occupy their hands all in one activity. Besides, it would be a while until he could hire regular cooks like in the old palace-- he would have to learn to fend for himself. Much to his chagrin, the psion shook his head to indicate that he wasn't hungry; the juice and the protein shake had filled his tiny stomach, it seemed. But luckily for Kankri, he too was more than happy to have something to do.  
"I'm not hungry, but I'd like to learn."


End file.
